Many believed that thousands of former Nazi Waffen SS soldiers joined the French Foreign Legion after World War II and fought against the Viet Minh at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. How did they escape being tried for war crimes? Was this France’s way of condemning them to death? Here are two different points of view. Did you know this?

By Georgy_K_Zhukov, December 11, 2012

Following the myths and legends about Nazis recruited by the French Foreign Legion to fight in Indochina, Eric Meyer’s new book is based on the real story of one such former Waffen-SS man who lived to tell the tale. The Legion recruited widely from soldiers left unemployed and homeless by the defeat of Germany in 1945. They offered a new identity and passport to men who could bring their fighting abilities to the jungles and rice paddies of what was to become Vietnam. These were ruthless, trained killers, brutalized by the war on the Eastern Front, their killing skills honed to a razor’s edge. They found their true home in Indochina, where they fought and became a byword for brutal military efficiency.

An estimated 35,000 Germans served during the eight-year conflict that ended 70 years ago when a disastrous defeat at the battle of Dien Bien Phu on May 7, 1954, brought about the fall of France‘s colonial empire in Indochina.

The French Foreign Legion was involved in the decisive battle of Dien Bien Phu in then French Indochina 70 years ago. The battle occurred in a remote valley in northeastern Vietnam and marked the end of French influence in Southeast Asia. The French garrison at Dien Bien Phu included legionnaires, Frenchmen, Algerians, Moroccans, enlisted Vietnamese, and other troops. The battle was a significant moment in the First Indochina War.

To start with, Germans have always made up an important component of the Foreign Legion – a popular saying is that the Legion is only as good as its worst German recruit – and in the wake of the World Wars, they were an especially high component, with recruitment happening straight from the POW camps. 50,000 German recruits actually sound about right for Indochina since roughly 150,000 Legionnaires served between 1945 and 1954, with a peak strength of 36,312, and while the anonymity makes exact figures hard to find, up to 60 percent is reported to have been Germanic (which would include Dutch, Austrians, and some Swiss/Belgians though) depending on the source! That’s a LOT of Germans, so 50,000 cycling through Indochina over nine years sounds feasible.

The origin of the idea that the FFL was rife with Nazi war criminals on the run, though, mostly comes from reports by the Vietminh after Dien Bien Phu, claiming that many of the German captives were Waffen-SS veterans. There are many reasons, however, why this ought to be treated with doubt and why almost every serious scholarship on the Legion these days rejects it, although more than a few picked it up and ran with it back in the ’50s and ’60s.

For starters, the Vietminh never substantiated their claims. It is quite possible they simply made it up, or perhaps they just assumed all Germans were Nazis on the run. Also, keep in mind the fact that the majority of their captives from Dien Bien Phu died over the next few months might have made them less than willing to document their claims and, in the process, demonstrate how terribly they were treating the POWs – during the conflict 26,000 French prisoners died in their care, 11,000 were released in August 1954.

There are other documented factors, though. In 1945-46, as the French recruited from POW and Displaced Person camps, they actually did screen candidates to some degree. German recruits especially were given enhanced scrutiny, but all recruits were required to strip and be inspected for the tell-tale blood-type tattoo that would have denoted membership in the Waffen-SS. Even having a scar in the spot where the tattoo might have been could be cause for rejection by the recruiter. This initial wave certainly would have had a fair number of Wehrmacht vets (enlisted only – officers were excluded), but only a small number of Waffen-SS who managed to sneak in somehow.

WWII Nazi Waffen SS unit tatoos

However, even members of the Wehrmacht would have made up only a small portion of the soldiers captured at Dien Bien Phu. While there would have been a larger proportion during the initial campaigning in Indochina, that first wave of recruits had finished their term of enlistment years before the disaster at Dien Bien Phu. The Legion was recruiting about 10,000 men a year, many of them certainly Germans, but by the 1950s, with the average age of a Legionnaire in the very early 20s, most German recruits were young men simply trying to escape the bleak situation in their home country, and the extent of their involvement with the Nazi party being their membership in the Hitler Youth as children.

So that’s the sum of it. The French recruited heavily in Germany, as they knew it was prime pickings for the Legion, but they explicitly excluded members of the Waffen-SS. It is certainly possible that there were non-SS war criminals who managed to sneak in and start a new life, but it was not with French knowledge, as they did their best to prevent it. As for how the Germans were accepted in the Legion… very well! As I said at the start, the Germans were viewed as the heart of the Legion, and more than a few officers were eager to see their return in great numbers in 1945.

*****

The following is reported by The Highlander eighteen years ago.

Because people are fascinated by the idea that former Waffen SS men
fought in the French Foreign Legion, I thought I would write out some
of the details to while away a sleepless night.

Many British people condemn the Irish Republic for remaining neutral
in WWII and I have no doubt that many Irish people had their own views about that, especially the large numbers of Irishmen who signed up under the British Colours and later returned home to be harrassed for “selling out”. Whether they were politically motivated, like the
Irishmen who fought in the Spanish Civil War, or people who could see
the likelihood of Ireland being invaded when Germany overran half a
dozen countries on the Continent and then turned their eyes towards
Britain, or whether they simply felt it might be an adventure and a
way to earn some money, the Irish volunteers formed an important part
of Europe’s resistance against the Nazis.

Not many people are aware that after World War II, large numbers of
Waffen SS soldiers joined the French Foreign Legion to go to
Vietnam and continue fighting the Ho Chi Minh and other Communist
terrorists that America had previously funded.

The SS, in particular, had been imbued by the Nazi leadership with the
the idea that Russian Communism was the greatest threat to Europe and their decision to join the Foreign Legion was often motivated by their belief that the Communists had to be fought on all fronts, including Vietnam. Their circumstances at that time, including avoiding the Nuremberg Trials and War Crimes Commissions, meant that they were looking for any opportunity to avoid being tried, jailed, and, in many cases, executed as war criminals.

Many opted to find their way to France, often on foot, to enlist in
the French Foreign Legion. The Legion was, no doubt, well aware of the
background of these droves of Germans who were willing to continue to fight and die, but it also desperately needed the experience and
expertise of these war-hardened veterans of countless battles. Not
even their former adversaries could deny that the Waffen SS was perhaps the most efficient, fanatical, well-trained and well-lead
fighting force ever created.

One cannot blame the French for this decision, as France urgently needed help. During WWII, Ho Chi Minh helped fight the Japanese in Indochina to secure independence for Tonkin as the colony of Vietnam was then called from France. (The U.S. actually provided arms, advisors, and even commandos to the Communist terrorist to help him achieve his goal.) However, France announced that French troops would return to take back control of Tonkin once the Germans had surrendered in Europe and an the incredible episode at that time saw the British, who, once they realized that the Americans were filled with Republican zeal in liberating and handing back many Asian countries to their original inhabitants actually moved into South Vietnam and released Japanese prisoners of war to help them suppress a growing Vietnamese movement to get the British out before the French arrived, much to American rage. The Americans bitterly said that SEAC (South East Asia Command) actually stood for “Save England’s Asian Colonies” and refused to offer more than minimal support.

However, the Americans themselves were not above taking back a slice of the pie (The Philippines), and they did their best to secure Hong Kong before the British could return to make it an American Protectorate.

With its unique window on China and deepwater naval facilities, Hong Kong was the plum of windows into Communist China. The Americans were foiled by the fact that Hong Kong’s Governor-General and his staff had survived Japanese captivity, and when they arrived, they found the British flag flying over Government House and the staff busily getting the island back to normal. End of America’s attempted Hong Kong grab.

The importance of Hong Kong can be seen in the fact that when the
Americans got more deeply into Vietnam, they pressured the British to join them. The British refused, pointing to Vietnam’s incredible history of driving out invaders, but did offer their spying facilities in Hong Kong, which the Americans found to be invaluable. The favor was returned during the Falklands War, when the Americans supplied
British planners with data from overflying satellites above the region, allowing the British to trump most of the moves made by Argentina; again, a little-known fact.

In fact, the Australians did decide that prosecuting the war was vital
to Australia’s defense interests, having had a bad shock during WWII
when the Japanese seemed to be on the verge of invading northern
Australia.

Also, again, a little-known fact, some of Britain’s SAS fought in
Vietnam, along with US special forces, used Australian uniforms as
cover to get mainland Asia experience in jungle fighting.

They apparently proved invaluable to the Americans as they were
already experienced in jungle fighting following Indonesia’s attempts
to grab (then British) Borneo after the Dutch were forced to leave
Indonesia, previously known as Java.

It was seeing the SAS in action that later prompted the Americans to
create their Delta force, which is modeled on the SAS and which
frequently trains and sometimes fights (Tora Bora, Afghanistan)
alongside them, as the Falklands proved that special forces can
achieve much better results than regular troops who lack their
unique skills.

Returning to the SS, we should also remind ourselves that a defeated
enemy can be extremely useful in victory, no matter how evil they may seem. For example, there was a terrific row in the US when the
American public found out that most of the Gestapo were now working
for the Americans, as were some of the various former Nazi police
forces. The reason? They knew where all the bodies were buried, who the good guys were, and who the bad guys were. The same mindset was at work when Churchill’s orders to store the Wehrmachts’ weapons close to the prison camps, in case the Wehrmacht was needed to help the Allies stop the Russians from advancing through Germany to the Atlantic coast in an attempt to take over Europe.

So, the French decision to hire the Waffen SS was not nearly as
unbelievable as one might think. Especially as most were rabidly
anti-Communist and welcomed the chance to get back into the fight
instead of going to jail and possibly execution.

Rallying his countrymen, Ho Chi Minh began attacking French garrisons
and committing atrocities that provoked the French to bombard
Haiphong. The Foreign Legion was expected to shoulder the burden in
Vietnam, as De Gaulle needed regular French troops to return home to
prevent a Communist revolution in his own country.

This allowed the SS volunteers to continue fighting the same
enemy in a different uniform. German (and, it should be noted, many other nationalities who were members of the Waffen SS) paratroopers and Partisan Jaeger (guerilla hunters) all flocked to fight the enemy once again.

While the jungle was a long way from the Eastern Front, the Soviet
cell structure, guerilla strategy, and overall operating methods were
followed by the Viet Minh (as the Viet Cong was then called), and the
Germans had long since learned the most effective means of dealing
with this type of warfare.

They ruthlessly matched the terrorists “bomb for bomb, bullet for
bullet, and murder for murder.” Just as in WWII, the SS let the
partisans know in advance; “for every one of us killed, we kill ten of
yours!” It was brutal, it was ruthless, but it worked.

When a convoy absolutely had to get through, when a French fort was
being besieged when a target deep in Viet Minh territory needed to be
neutralized, it was the SS that was called upon time after time. In
units of up to 300, they were armed, given orders, and sent on suicide
missions, although they often returned with few, if any, casualties of
their own.

They took death to the Viet Minh freedom fighters and beat them at
their own game. After passing through seemingly peaceful villages of
rice pickers, a few men with light machine guns would drop into
ditches along the side of the road to await the villagers’ reaction after the troops had passed out of sight. If they continued picking rice, they would be left alone. If they immediately began scurrying around, sending messengers into the jungle to alert nearby guerillas, or
attempted to follow the Legionnaires, hoping to shoot a few in the
back, they were instantly mowed down.

Another trick was to lie in ambush along a heavily used enemy trail
waiting for a small group of Viet Minh to come jogging past. As they
traveled spaced apart in a single file line, a skilled sniper with a
silencer-equipped rifle could take out the whole group by starting
with the one last in line and moving up, the ones in front never
hearing those behind hit the ground.

Sometimes, the Viet Minh would try to hit and run, escaping afterward
by lying on their backs submerged in shallow rice paddy canals,
breathing through reeds. A few grenades tossed in the water put an end to that.

Knowing that the terrorists usually operated within a 20-50 mile
radius of their own village, effective use could be made of the
civilian population to curtail attacks. For example, when traveling
through a dangerous sector, the wives and children of known local
guerilla leaders would be taken hostage and held at gunpoint until the
next village was reached, where a new batch of hostages was taken.

Once, the Viet Minh threatened to kill one French hostage every ten
minutes until a particular fort surrendered. After half a dozen
soldiers had been mutilated and murdered in plain view of the fort,
the SS showed up.

They had rounded up the families of some of the Communists known to be taking part in the siege and frog-marched them to the fort,
threatening to retaliate in kind. The fort was freed.

On another occasion, some terrorists were captured who knew the
location of French P.O.W.s but refused to talk. Knowing that time was
of the essence, the SS stripped the first prisoner and wrapped a cord of
slow-burning fuse around the man’s feet and legs, ending at his
testicles, where a detonator was attached. The fuse burned an inch-wide path up the terrorist’s body and blew his testicles off.

After seeing this, the second man to be stripped told the Legionnaires
what they needed to know, reputedly in three different languages, to
ensure they understood. The P.O.W.s were freed.

The Viet Minh were being fought with the same tactics they used and
they did not like it. The SS was able to blow up bridges and destroy
countless tons of food and other war materiel, eliminating thousands of
troops and sow fear and confusion behind enemy lines as they traveled
at will. The Germans were so successful that the Viet Minh began to
avoid them at all costs, and actually printed “Wanted” posters of some
of the SS commandos, offering up to 200,000 piasters for their
capture.

As in Russia, the Germans in Viet Nam were always outnumbered,
sometimes 20 or 30 to 1, but they always succeeded in out-marching,
out-fighting and out-terrorizing the Vietnamese. With a few more
divisions or a little more time, the SS was well on their way to ending
Communism in Tonkin in the 1950’s.

However, the election of a socialist Prime Minister of France, Léon
Blum, who vowed to rid the French Foreign Legion of the SS and did so,
Many were held back by the French High Command, who knew they had a good thing going with the former Waffen SS and were loath to kiss them goodbye.

Eventually, because the French General Henri Navarre refused to
believe that little men on bicycles could drag heavy artillery up high
mountains to overlook a small village in northern Vietnam called Dien
Bien Phu; he decided to make Dien Bien Phu the center of a fresh
attempt to drive the Communists into nearby Laos without drawing up
any strategic plan to achieve this laudable aim.

A cavalryman, Colonel Christian de Castries, was put in command and
correctly anticipating a defensive struggle as the village lies on the
floor of a deep valley, now overlooked by hills hiding Viet Minh
artillery, the little men on bicycles having proved General Navarre
wrong; dug in for self-defense as he could see that the defeat of the
French was inevitable, and the village was the ideal spot for a
massacre of the French, which would effectively end the war.

The French had committed 10,800 troops, with more reinforcements
totaling nearly 16,000 men to the defense of a monsoon-affected
valley surrounded by heavily wooded hills that had not been secured.
Artillery, as well as ten M-24 light tanks and numerous aircraft, were
committed to the garrison as well. The garrison comprised French
regular troops (notably elite paratroop units plus artillery), Foreign
Legionnaires, Algerian and Moroccan tirailleurs, and locally recruited
Indochinese infantry.

The Viet Minh moved 50,000 regular troops into the hills surrounding
the valley, totaling five divisions, including the 351st Heavy Division,
made up entirely of heavy artillery. Artillery and AA guns, which
outnumbered the French artillery by about four to one, were moved into camouflaged positions overlooking the valley, and the French came under sporadic Viet Minh artillery fire for the first time on January 31, 1954, and patrols encountered the Viet Minh in all directions. The
battle had been joined, and the French were now surrounded.

After a battle lasting 209 days, during the last 54 days of which the
garrison was actually under constant attack, overseen by one of the
greatest generals the world has ever seen, General Giap, all French
resistance collapsed.

On May 8, the Viet Minh counted 11,721 prisoners, of whom 4,436 were
wounded. This was the greatest number the Viet Minh had ever captured: one-third of the total captured during the entire war. The prisoners were divided into groups. Able-bodied soldiers were force-marched over 250 miles to prison camps to the north and east. Hundreds died of disease on the way. The wounded, counted at 4,436, were given basic triage until the Red Cross arrived, removing 838 and giving better aid to the remainder. The remainder was sent into detention.

The prison camp was even worse. The survivors of the French garrison at Dien Bien Phu, many of them SS Legionnaires, were constantly starved, beaten, and heaped with abuse, and many died. Of the remaining 10,863 prisoners, only 3,290 were repatriated four months later. The Viet Minh made tremendous political capital out of the number of SS men found fighting for the French, and sympathy for the French in the rest of Europe and elsewhere sank to nil.

When the French pulled out, American advisors moved in, and soon after did the first US troops. We know the rest but for the French, the
news that the famous Foreign Legion had been defeated led directly to
the African colonies of Tunisia and Morocco gained independence by
1956, while in the “Jewel in the French Crown,” Algeria’s War of
Independence started six months later, resulting in independence on
July 5, 1962.

I know this has been a long and exhausting read and that I have
glossed over many of the details, but I thought it would give you all
some insights into why our world is as it is today.

Without the SS, Vietnam would have been lost much earlier, and
although the Americans were underwriting the French at the time of
Dien Bien Phu by as much as 80% of their costs and supplying support
help, including bombing runs against the Viet Minh, the chances are
that the American effort in Vietnam would not have gone much further
than helping the French evacuate. But, thanks to the SS and the Legion
keeping the war alive; by the time it did end, the Americans were so
obsessed with the idea that losing Vietnam meant opening up all of
Asia to a Communist takeover, that it took over the war and, like the
French lost it.

Vietnam, called An Nam (southern province) by the Chinese, fought a
500-year war against China to become free. When the French took over, it was the last Asian country still governed by the principles of
the great Chinese philosopher Kong Fu Tze, whom we call Confucius. The language is complicated, using eleven tones in contrast to Mandarin’s four tones.

The people are small and slight but well made, with women that many
think are the most beautiful in Asia and men who do not understand the meaning of ‘defeat.’ They created a new world standard for
toughness and cleverness by first defeating China, then France, and
finally, the greatest power the world has ever seen, the United States.

As citizens of small countries, Ireland and Scotland, beset so often
by enemies throughout history, one has to admire the Vietnamese.

I compiled this from several sources, so any errors and omissions are
mine.

So there you have it. What say you?

*****

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